Killing Time
by templremus1990
Summary: Longish, kinda angsty oneshot, set at the End of the Age of Steel. My take on what might have happened between Rose's goodbye to Mickey and their arrival back in Jackie's flat. TenRose, some spoliers for Age of Steel and bits of Series One. Please R&R!


**Killing Time**

He didn't quite remember the point at which she was no longer there. He heard the door close behind him, but didn't turn round, dashing from one lever to the next in his eagerness to be off. This whole world was _wrong, _the whole Universe, and it weighted him down, making him feel sick and trapped, straining for escape. Revelling in the hum of his ship he had thought dead, filling his mind once more, he poured his whole being into the flight, the delicate plunge into another dimension that felt like some part of him that he hadn't realised he was missing had been returned at last. Then he looked for her in the throbbing console room and he remembered.

She didn't look up when he entered, and he caught himself a minute at the threshold, steadying himself, trying not to look like he had just sprinted flat-out all the way through the living quarters. She had pulled some fresh clothes from the wardrobe, and they were now spread out on the bed in a small heap, half-folded over. Then he saw the red-and-black rucksack dumped precariously on the chair beside it, and his stomach dive-bombed.

He didn't say anything. He couldn't. He sat beside her, she with her knees drawn up close to her, leaning against the warm wall of the TARDIS. When she finally broke the silence, it was as if she was talking to herself.

"He always used to take so much crap from people, you know that? Mum would be on and on at him, gotta look after her, gotta have her back by ten, gotta get a proper job for her, like we were married or something. And he did." She swallowed. "Car mechanic. Hated every minute of it, too. Would have given anything to do something better, something he was really good at. But he never complained. Used to think he was stupid, doing something like that when he could have been out having a good time. Mickey the Idiot."

He flinched at that. The memory, faded now, was suddenly raw with guilt. He swallowed.

"I-"

She seemed to acknowledge his presence for the first time, though she still couldn't meet his eyes, tugging nervously at the too-short black skirt.

"You were just winding him up, I know." She laughed a little, almost a sob. "God, you could be such a crotchety git then. Never gave anyone else a chance." She pressed her hands to her mouth, speaking through her fingers. "They all left, in the end, didn't they? Harriet Jones, Lynda, Jack, Adam. Adam was a proper idiot, but the others…" She turned at last and looked him in the face, and he saw that her eyes were dark-ringed and angry with tears.

"This is what happens, isn't it? You said so, right at the start, and I just thought you were cruel and alien, but you can't. You can't save them all, you can't even save yourself half the time, and then you've just gotta fight and fight until there's nothing you can do and hope that's enough."

She was silent for a long time after that, her face turned to the wall, and when she spoke again it was so quietly he thought he must have heard her wrong, until she turned to him and repeated it.

"How do you do it?"

He stared at her, not understanding. She took a shaky breath.

"How do you keep on going when you're the only one left? How do you live with yourself when you've gotta lose everyone else?"

_I don't, _he wanted to say. _I just learn how to be incomplete. Being broken's easy, once you've got the hang of it. You just need to forget what it was to be whole. _

He had come so close to losing everything this time. Feeling the TARDIS break was like having a gaping hole torn in the back of his mind, another invisible wound to live with, though this one had healed while the others remained. Still he would keep on moving, keep on smiling, because standing still would mean giving in, and she had shown him that giving in was no longer an option.

You carried on because that was what it was to live. He shook his head slightly.

"I don't know."

It was a lie, but he no longer had the words for the truth, because it was buried so deep inside him he barely felt it. In his ninth body it had lived closer to the surface, firing his every movement when there was nothing more to drive him on, but now it was kinder to him, had changed into something that came closer to acceptance.

She straightened up abruptly, brushing down her crumpled outfit with fingers that only shook very slightly, and stood. She began to pull the clumsily-folded clothes back out of the rucksack, then stopped and made to replace them. Finally she shoved the whole thing off the bed with a violent movement and simply sat on the bed. He sat still a moment, then ventured:

"If you're not ready yet, that's fine. I can…just let her drift for a bit, or…or…"

He trailed off when he saw she was staring at him, then got to his feet, and went on, blindly:

"But if you want to take some time to pack, I'd better get back up to the console room, or the TARDIS'll probably be landing in a few minutes, though she might be a bit slow, needs a bit of time to recover now she's in the right Universe-"

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and kicked himself mentally for bringing it up so soon. _Of all the stupid, heartless things to-_

"Get this into your impossible, stupid-crazy alien brain, Doctor, alright?" She pulled him roughly round, and he faced her.

"I'm not leaving you. You got that? I'm not just walking out now, I'm not…I can't…"

She was crying hard now. Without thinking he put an arm across her back and drew her to him. When her shoulders finally stopped shaking did she was still for a long time, leaning heavily against his shoulder. Then her arms slowly found his, and held them tight.

He waited for her to pull away, wiping her eyes with one hand but keeping hold of his arm.

"I'd better get changed…Mum'll kill me if she sees this skirt…"

He laughed, even though it wasn't all that funny.

"Probably do for me first."

She smiled at that, a proper smile, and he felt his stomach rise from somewhere around the soles of his feet. He retreated silently, closing the door behind him, and walked slowly back to the console room.

-

"You're alive..."

He waited by the TARDIS door, feeling his chest tighten a little. The words were like that of some child who had come back from a nightmare, not quite ready to believe that life could go on.

_  
_"What's wrong? Where did you go?"

He drew in his breath slightly, wondering how to say it. Everything was so new that the world itself seemed scrubbed raw, too fragile, too bright.

"Far away. That was…far away."

He looked at them both as they clung together, mother and daughter, one not understanding, the other understanding far too much. She had left something of herself behind, in that place, and so had he. For the briefest of moments, as they had fallen through nothingness and the world had ripped open for them, he had seen it all again. All that had been then, was now, and all that ever could be in an instant. He had seen the whole of creation flare inside him for an instant, and in that instant death was so close it terrified him.

Now, Rose hung closer round her mother's neck, afraid to let her go, holding onto something which neither could pin down, but which tied them together in a way he could never know. Now, death hung back. Now, they had a second chance, and it would not, could never be enough, but they would take it anyway.

Because she made him the nearest thing to whole that he could ever be, and for that, he could risk everything.


End file.
